


Lunch Break

by blueberrytea



Category: The Maze Runner (2014), The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Short One Shot, lol procrastination, whoops?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-28
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-03-26 04:07:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3836443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueberrytea/pseuds/blueberrytea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Thomas and Newt drink some soda.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lunch Break

**Author's Note:**

> HOLY SHIT I'M ALIVE. The play is over, and I'm back to writing for a while (hopefully). Here, take this as an apology fic. I wrote it instead of doing geometry homework. Go me. Hope you guys like it! <3

“It’s so stupid, what he’s done to me.” Thomas gently squeezed his soda can, then let it pop back out. “I just hate that my crushes have that kind of power. I hate it. I guess…” He fidgeted under Newt’s attention. It wasn’t often that they talked about Thomas’s love life, and Thomas felt as if he had a giant spotlight on him that highlighted every drop of sweat, every time he clenched his hands around the now-lukewarm soda can. He emitted a shaky sigh and tried to continue. “I guess I just wish that, out of all the people I’ve liked, _one_ person could like be back. That would be so, _so_ great. I’ve already had my ‘wow, this is so bad it’s funny’ moment and now I’m getting really annoyed.” There was a brief moment of silence while he took a swig from the can and tried to hold it together. Newt nudged Thomas’s shoulder with his own.

“Surely you’ve been mutually interested in someone. You can’t have just waltzed through life without someone you’re interested in being interested in you, too?”

“That was always girls. And girls…they just didn’t feel right.”

“Maybe you haven’t found the right person yet. Maybe you could find out—”

“That’s what everyone tells me, and have been telling me, for as long as I can remember.” Thomas cast a defeated look at his now deformed can, and squeezed it once more.

“Well, maybe you should listen to them.”

“How are you such an optimist?”

“Trial and error.” Newt suddenly grew serious, and they sat in silence once more.

“I…I’m sorry. I’m such a downer. Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Great. Now Newt was pissed at him. Thomas hated when Newt was pissed at him. Thomas hated everything.

In a final desperate attempt to say something worthwhile, Thomas offered, quietly, “Newt, I know you probably always have girls crawling all over you, but…” Newt looked at him, shocked and anticipating and making those big brown puppy eyes. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about hooking guys, would you?” Thomas nearly slapped a hand over his mouth in sheer embarrassment, and watched in trepidation as an utterly confused look overtook Newt’s features. The look then morphed into a small laugh, one that was nervous and fake. When Newt looked down at his bottle of orange soda he looked almost distraught.

“Ha…I thought you were going to say something very different.” The smile Newt flashed at Thomas then was also fake, and Thomas cringed at his own stupidity. “I, um, I thought you were going to say, ‘Newt,’” At this he put on the most ridiculous falsetto Thomas had ever heard, and he launched into a coughing fit from the soda he swallowed wrong. Newt really smiled at him this time, a tiny, faint one, then continued: “’I know you probably always have girls crawling all over you, but...” he cleared his throat nervously. “’It seems to me that maybe _you_ could be them. The “right person.”’”

Thomas stared at Newt. Newt didn’t look at him, just took another swallow from his bottle. Looked at the ground. Murmured, “And I would have said, ‘I think that’s just about the best news I’ve heard all year.’”

And then it was like the whole world was holding its breath. Thomas certainly was, and each heartbeat lit another firecracker that burst into something—maybe nerves, maybe excitement—that consumed him. Blood pumped hard through his body as he watched Newt slowly turn the bottle in his hands. Slender hands, with long nails. Always in the dirt, but always coming up perfect again. How Thomas had looked at those hands, at every part of him, at the way his smile lines seemed etched like someone who had been smiling for a long time, the way his eyes scrunched up when he laughed, the way his upper lip was so finely shaped. Thomas looked at him, taking in everything, finally letting out an all-too-conspicuous breath, and then—

And then saying, “I think that’s just about the best news I’ve heard all year.” Newt glanced at Thomas as if he had couldn’t have said anything worse, as if Thomas had left him so broken he couldn’t be put back together. So, with the last ounce of confidence Thomas had left, he rested his hand on the side of Newt’s face, leaned forward, and kissed him.

The kiss was light, soft, and sure of itself, as if their closeness was the most strong and obvious thing in the world. As if they had done it a thousand times. When it was over, Thomas relished the feeling of Newt’s breath on his face, then, smiling, near-whispered, “Well, this certainly wasn’t on the list of things I expected to happen today.”

They didn’t stop laughing until their boss appeared at the door and told them if they didn’t quit making a racket they’d both be fired.


End file.
